Beyonce’s “Bow Down, Bitches” :The Problem with Barbie

March 19, 2013

Photo of Beyonce as young girl with tiara. Title treatment provided by artist

Beyoncé’s “Bow Down, Bitches” is the singer-performer’s first tease track for her upcoming album, most probably entitled, “Mrs Carter”. The track was released on the Beyonce’s Tumblr site on March 17th, asking fans to give their comments.

You can be assured that the feverish Perez Hilton has unctuously weighed in on the song.”We have NO EFFING WORDS! NONE!” writes Perez . You can listen to the track here.

Here are lyrics written by the artist:

“I’m bigger than life / The name in the lights / I’m the the No. 1 chick I don’t need no hype / The capital B means I’m about that life I’ve been on I’ve been on I’ve been on / Tell me who’s going to take me off. I took some time to live my life, but don’t think I’m just his little wife / Don’t get it twisted, get it twisted, this my s—, bow down, bitches.”

I’m thinkin’ we still have a problem with Barbie.

Otherwise, how do you explain a beautiful choir-raised singer becoming, excuse me, such a rip-roaring, soft-spoken skank?

“I realized that one of my responsibilities was to inspire women in a deeper way,” Beyoncé Knowles said to Urban Times in March of this year.” Really, gurl?

“Bow Down, Bitches”

We have had significant, positive female role models in this last century. They include Eleanor Roosevelt (social justice activist), Rose Parks (human rights activist), Gloria Steinem (magazine publisher and author), Hillary Clinton (Former US Secretary of State ), Nora Ephron (Humorist and film director), even a singer – song writer name “Adele”.

“Special Edition” Beyonce for $199

“Barbie” is a brand of doll who dominated girl-consumerism in the 60s and 70s. She has been “radicalized” since her genesis but her echo is still felt. Barbie represented blonde eros, a terrible stereotype of hyperventilating plastic sexuality that excited millions of girls and then distressed them, when as adults, their mirror image didn’t rise to Barbie’s synthetic beauty.

Implicit in “Barbie” was the reliance on Ken, a male companion doll who was undersexualized as much as Barbie was oversexualized.

One of the most successful franchises at the Disney corporation remains the “Princess” Franchise which continues to reinforce seemingly outdated stereotypes of female completion only through the male “rescue” of the prince.

“Not in my house!” say a lot of my Mom-friends. Really? Their daughters may not be glue-gunning new hairstyles on Barbie — but they are still being fed the re-runs of narrow princess mythology from the Disney family era.

Of course, it’s not just curse words or flagrant sexuality that is dangerous for children — it is the mirroring of inappropriate and weak role models. While The Brave and Tangled demonstrate snarky and spunky can be cool for girls — our little ones are still watching Snow White,Cinderella, and Little Mermaid in droves ( all saved and validated by the “Prince”). According to Forbes , the Disney Princess franchise is the number one product franchise in the world with $3 billion in gross sales in 2012. In comparison, Angry Birds was a meager 18th on the pop product list.

So here are our little girls all grown up like Beyoncé Knowles and Whitney Houston. They played with Barbies in their nascent days. Later, they were thrilled to have “special edition” Barbies in their names until the bad publicity became too much.

Both Beyoncé and Whitney came from upstanding households and were “behaviorally good” girls in their teens. In their twenties, they wanted music princes and they got them. But as so many of the wise know, those princes were scoundrels beneath their crowns.

Bobbie Brown played his little royal kitten, Whitney, with drugs which she absorbed like catnip.

Jay Z wearing his infamous urban hoodie

Rap entrepreneur, Jay Z plied his gurl or should I say “tool” with the catnip of fame and his rap expertise inside a profane music empire. Beyoncé pushes the sex-toy objectification much farther than Whitney ever did.

But Beyonce says that wasn’t really her on the Superbowl stage. She’s become that disconnected from herself. In her soft-spoken voice, the performer confesses how shy she really is. She needs her “alter ego”, the aggressive “Sasha Fierce”, to touch and grab her hyperventilating gyrating bod , whipping her fans into the red flush of sexual promise.

But, really, is the true villain here Beyoncé’s dark alchemist husband? Jay Z has rapidly moved Beyoncé into more Epicurean, urban, rap stylings. He certainly looks the part of the evil svengali-prince. He even wears the urban hoodie baring the Satanic slogan on the infamous Alister Crowley, the famed occultist. It says “Do What Thou Wilt.”

Jay Z is probably just a greedy Svengali from the corporate machine looking for a good time with his baby-doll wife. Her new tour is named after her “married name”, “Mrs. Carter”.

Even through this perfect blonde icon may not be in the front racks of stores any more , she is still an active vestige. Barbie is imbedded in our ambiguous culture as deep and rich as the Princess mythology.

The women’s movement thought they had killed her. No, Barbie still resides as an unfortunate ghost, toying with the fantasy lives of girls.

There are still women out there who buy the phantasmagoria, forsaking discernment for the blinding princess dream of completion, looking for a prince, no matter what it costs them personally.

David Kirkpatrick’s book, Artists of God: Jesus and the Green Fairy – A History Of The Modern Christian Artist will be published in October of this year.

2 responses to Beyonce’s “Bow Down, Bitches” :The Problem with Barbie

Unfortunately, women buy into this mindset as much as men. Beyonce is but a cog in the machine. She (and her husband) have figured out that to make the almighty $$, sexualize. Her music is okay, but it’s her image that sells the tunes.

A few years ago, Isaac Mizrahi, the fashion designer, created a collection and used as his models women who were a size 12, not a size 0 or 2. He thought if he could celebrate the average-looking woman, not the Barbie doll, that his customers would appreciate it. That was his most unsuccessful collection ever.

That is so depressing about the Mizrahi collection….and I love the Pogo quote. Thanks so much, Martha. I guess I am surprised at the audacity of the sex and raunch…. I have a gut that this will end tragically. Do you remember when we were considering doing a line of “Christian” beauty products with Beyonce?? ….It was called “TEMPLE”….the allure of fame and darkness is an intoxicant….I have seen sweet girls, yes, even Madonna, early on….turn almost savage in order to deliver higher/better/sexier/edgier….and then, to what end?? Well it was the original title of the first “A Star Is Born” — “What Price Hollywood?”…and now it is still the same , it merely thrives under a different set of masks…